Ruling Party Likely to Benefit from Summit Talks in General Elections

The political community buzzed with excitement Monday over the unprecedented agreement to hold inter-Korean summit talks and scrambled to calculate the substantial impact on National Assembly elections only three days away.

No political party, however, could deny that the upcoming summit talks would have a positive impact on the ruling party and a negative impact on the opposition.

The ruling Millenium Democratic Party (MDP) judged that it succeeded in turning the table on the opposition, which has continuously denounced the current administration for adopting a "humble attitude towards North Korea without gaining any results." The ruling party believes it has effectively silenced the critics of President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy by the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and minor opposition United Liberal Democrats (ULD).

The MDP is now confident of support from the voters who came from North Korea, estimated at about 4.5 million. About 2 million of them are living in the metropolitan area surrounding Seoul, and the MDP will enjoy victories in a number of hotly contested electoral districts if it wins these votes. The call for winning a majority of seats in the National Assembly, which had abated for some time, is now regaining force within the MDP.

Meanwhile, the GNP is anxious that its call to "judge the Kim Dae-jung administration" in the upcoming elections and its charges of "a conspiracy by the ruling party for a prolonged rule" might lose ground in the fervor over the South-North summit talks. If the voters in the metropolitan area whose hometown is in North Korea decide to rally behind the ruling party, they will directly affect the outcome in contested electoral districts.

Nevertheless, the GNP is clinging to the hope that the aftereffects of this event might not prove to be as great a step in inter-Korean relationship as has been widely anticipated, most recently expressed through President Kim's Berlin Declaration. The GNP also predicted the upcoming summit talks would not have much influence on opinion makers. It is even hoping that solidarity among those opposing President Kim might strengthen if the summit meeting creates a sense of crisis among them.

The ULD, which has been promoting its conservatism, is in a quandary, fearing the summit talks will affect the votes in three or four districts where ULD candidates are engaged in a two-way competition with MDP candidates or are in a tripartite competition with MDP and GNP candidates.

by Kim Sok-hyon